4.4: Psychodynamic and Humanistic Theories of Personality

Denial

A defense mechanism where an individual refuses to accept reality or facts, blocking external events from awareness.

Displacement

A defense mechanism where an individual refuses to accept reality or facts, blocking external events from awareness.

Projection

A defense mechanism where individuals attribute their own unacceptable thoughts or feelings onto someone else.

Rationalization

A defense mechanism involving creating a seemingly logical reason or excuse for behaviors or feelings that are actually informed.

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism where a person behaves in a way opposite to what they truly feel, often exaggeratedly so.

Regression

A defense mechanism where an individual faced with anxiety retreates to a more infantile psychosexual stage.

Sublimation

A defense mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior.

Repression

A defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from conscious awareness.

Projective Tests

Personality assessments that present ambiguous stimuli to reveal hidden emotions and internal conflicts.

Objective Personality Test

Standardized questionnaires requiring written resposnes; they asses personality traits with clear, structured scoring.

Positive Regard

The sense of being loved and valued by others.

Unconditional Positive Regard

Accepting and valuing a person without conditions or judgment.

Conditional Positive Regard

Acceptance and love that is dependent upon behaving in certain ways and fulfilling certain conditions.

Self-Concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves.

Self-Esteem

One's feelings of high or low self-worth.

Self-Actualizing Tendency

The innate drive in every individual to fulfill their potential and achieve the highest human capabilities.

Self-Transcendence

Going beyond one's own self-interest and seeking meaning and purpose beyond the self.

Q-Sort Technique

A method used to assess self-concept where individuals sort a large number of statements about themselves into categories from most to least like themselves.

Congruence

When a person's ideal self and actual experience are consistent or very similar.